"I can't believe they kicked us out," Naruto said glumly as he and Sasuke made their way to the village gates. "I wanted to be the first person Sakura-chan saw when she woke up, ya know?"
"As if she'd want to see your goofy mug first thing after waking up from a coma," Sasuke retorted. "Now stop dragging your feet, we've got our orders."
After a week's worth of bed rest, Sasuke was finally somewhat back to full strength. After all, unlike monsters like Naruto, who could regenerate his stamina mid-fight without even needing to eat or sleep, he was just an ordinary person. If he expended most of his chakra, it would take him about a week to regenerate the physical energy stored in his mitochondria.
"It just feels wrong to move out without Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan," Naruto grumbled. "Captain Yamato's great and all, don't get me wrong, but sometimes, he really freaks me out, ya know…?"
Naruto broke off, glancing left and right fearfully as a droplet of cold sweat ran down his temple. Whenever he badmouthed the man, that was usually when he would pop out of nowhere behind him, looming over his shoulder...
"Aha!" Naruto yelled, swivelling on the spot to jab his shaky forefinger at empty space. "He's right behind me, isn't he, ya know… eh?"
"Who do you take Captain Yamato for, some kind of yōkai you can summon by saying his name three times in front of a mirror?" Sasuke sighed, shaking his head at his teammate's antics. "Though I have to admit, those eyes of him also creep me out…"
Sasuke's voice trailed off as Naruto raised his trembling finger, pointing behind him…
"G-g-g…"
"Give it a rest, Naruto, this isn't the time for your ridiculous pranks," Sasuke said sternly. "If Captain Yamato really was behind me, don't you think I would have sensed him? Like Shikaku said earlier, if you'd been listening, he's waiting for us at the An gates."
Naruto shook his head fearfully, his entire body shaking like a leaf. His terror seemed too real to be fake, so Sasuke slowly turned around to see what was giving his teammate such a fright… and he started, for there actually was something behind him… the translucent figure of a horned, old man, ghostly flames floating about him.
"GHOST!" Naruto screamed like a little girl as he dived for cover behind Sasuke's back.
Having grown and matured as a shinobi, there was nothing in this world Naruto feared any more… except the supernatural. He had encountered a ghost or two during his adventures, and they spooked the living daylights out of him.
"Yo," said the ghost, raising a hand in salute. "…what are you looking at me like that for?" he added after a few seconds of shocked silence. "Isn't this that slang what y'all young'uns use these days? I got the feeling that girl from earlier wasn't really vibing with what I was saying, so I tried to go with the flow, man…"
Naruto whimpered, cowering in terror, but Sasuke's nerves were made of sterner stuff. He reflexively reached into his tool pouch and sent a shuriken flying at the ghost's head, only for it to sail harmlessly through, right between its eyes, before embedding itself in a tree behind it.
"Oi, quit it," the ghost said irritably. "Just because it doesn't hurt me doesn't mean I enjoy having sharp objects thrown at my head, ya hear?"
It wasn't a genjutsu, nor was it any kind of chakra projection technique, so Sasuke was forced to come to the same conclusion Naruto had already reached... they were dealing with a genuine ghost. One who spoke in Kansai dialect, for some reason.
"Speak, apparition," Sasuke said, acting as if he hadn't just tried to ghost-bust it. "What do you want with us?"
A look of infinite gravitas appeared on the ghost's weary, wizened features.
"Uzumaki Naruto," he said, eliciting a gurgled scream from Naruto. "Uchiha Sasuke," he added. "I… am your father."
!!!
"…Dad?" Naruto said tentatively, poking his head out from behind Sasuke's back… though his knees were still knocking together quite loudly in fear. "Is it really you? Didja die again? And why're you talking like you're from the boondocks?"
"You've got the wrong people," Sasuke said coolly. "My father was Uchiha Fugaku, and if this idiot really was my brother, I would have strangled him in the crib long ago."
In a flash, the familiar scenery of the Hidden Leaf Village vanished as a curtain of darkness fell upon them. All of a sudden, Naruto found himself alone with the ghost, standing in a pool of what appeared to be piss. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen, but now that the ghost looked a good deal more solid and a good deal less ghostly, Naruto felt a little less frightened, even though he still had no idea what had just happened to them.
"I am Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo," said the old horned man. "You may know me better by the name Sage of Six Paths."
Naruto's eyes lit up in recognition. He had indeed heard of him before, from Nagato and Pervy Sage-sensei. He watched as the old man struck the suspiciously yellow fluid at their feet with his sun-and moon staff, sending waves rippling outwards through the piss.
"It's not piss," the Sage of Six Paths sighed, as though he were reading Naruto's mind. "It's just the lighting, so give it a rest, already. Your friend's is blue, would you rather have that instead?"
"What the…"
Naruto's reflection grew troubled as the ripples washed against his feet, and as the water grew calm again, he found that the image reflected below was no longer his own, but that of a stranger wearing white robes emblazoned with six magatama.
"Once it has been created, chakra can never truly be destroyed," the Sage of Six Paths explained. "Likewise, if chakra is imbued with sufficiently strong emotions, it is possible for the will contained within it to subsist far into the future... and your chakra, Naruto, is that of my son's, Ashura... while that of your friend Sasuke is Indra's, my other son..."
"Stop spouting nonsense, Super Old Gramps Sage," Naruto spluttered. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and no one else, got it? I got this far because I worked hard at it, not because I was anybody else, ya know? I don't know nothing about no Asura or Ashura!"
Hagoromo nodded.
"Indeed, that was also Ashura's way," he said appreciatively. "Unlike his brother Indra, he was born without any of the great talents of my bloodline... he slowly grew by working hard, befriending others and borrowing their unique strengths, and it was through that great love of his that he finally awakened to his true power... but if you're going to persist in calling me weird names, could you at least drop the old part!?"
"Super Gramps Sage, then?" Naruto suggested.
The Sage of Six Paths facepalmed.